Les Misérables, v. 4/5: The Idyll and the Epic

by Victor Hugo

"Nineteen."

"You are strong and healthy, why do you not work?"

"It is a bore."

"What is your trade?"

"Idler."

"Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What do you wish to be?"

"A robber."

There was a silence, and the old gentleman seemed in profound thought; but he did not loose his hold of Montparnasse. Every now and then the young bandit, who was vigorous and active, gave starts like a wild beast caught in a snare; he shook himself, attempted a trip, wildly writhed his limbs, and tried to escape. The old gentleman did not appear to notice it, and held the ruffian's two arms in one hand with the sovereign indifference of absolute strength. The old man's reverie lasted some time; then, gazing fixedly at Montparnasse, he mildly raised his voice and addressed to him, in the darkness where they stood, a sort of solemn appeal, of which Gavroche did not lose a syllable.

"My boy, you are entering by sloth into the most laborious of existences. Ah! you declare yourself an idler, then prepare yourself for labor. Have you ever seen a formidable machine which is called a rolling-mill? You must be on your guard against it; for it is a crafty and ferocious thing, and if it catch you by the skirt of the coat it drags you under it entirely. Such a machine is indolence. Stop while there is yet time, and save yourself, otherwise it is all over with you, and ere long you will be among the cog-wheels. Once caught, hope for nothing more. You will be forced to fatigue yourself, idler; and no rest will be allowed you, for the iron hand of implacable toil has seized you. You refuse to earn your livelihood, have a calling, and accomplish a duty. It bores you to be like the rest; well, you will be different. Labor is the law, and whoever repulses it as a bore must have it as a punishment. You do not wish to be a laborer, and you will be a slave. Toil only lets you loose on one side to seize you again on the other; you do not wish to be its friend, and you will be its negro. Ah, you did not care for the honest fatigue of men, and you are about to know the sweat of the damned; while others sing you will groan. You will see other men working in the distance, and they will seem to you to be resting. The laborer, the reaper, the sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in the light like the blessed inmates of a paradise. What a radiance there is in the anvil! What joy it is to guide the plough, and tie up the sheaf! What a holiday to fly before the wind in a boat! But you, idler, will have to dig and drag, and roll and walk. Pull at your halter, for you are a beast of burden in the service of hell! So your desire is to do nothing? Well, you will not have a week, a day, an hour without feeling crushed. You will not be able to lift anything without agony, and every passing minute will make your muscles crack. What is a feather for others will be a rock for you, and the most simple things will become steep. Life will become a monster around you, and coming, going, breathing, will be so many terrible tasks for you. Your lungs will produce in you the effect of a hundred-pound weight; and going there sooner than here will be a problem to solve. Any man who wishes to go out, merely opens his door and finds himself in the street; but if you wish to go out you must pierce through your wall. What do honest men do to reach the street? They go downstairs; but you will tear up your sheets, make a cord of them fibre by fibre, then pass through your window and hang by this thread over an abyss. And it will take place at night, in the storm, the rain, or the hurricane; and if the cord be too short you will have but one way of descending, by falling—falling haphazard into the gulf, and from any height, and on what? On some unknown thing beneath. Or you will climb up a chimney at the risk of burning yourself; or crawl through a sewer at the risk of drowning. I will say nothing of the holes which must be masked; of the stones which you will have to remove and put back twenty times a day, or of the plaster you must hide under your mattress. A lock presents itself, and the citizen has in his pocket the key for it, made by the locksmith; but you, if you wish to go out, are condemned to make a terrible masterpiece. You will take a double sou and cut it asunder. With what tools? You will invent them; that is your business. Then you will hollow out the interior of the two parts, being careful not to injure the outside, and form a thread all round the edge, so that the two parts may fit closely like a box and its cover. When they are screwed together there will be nothing suspicious to the watchers,—for you will be watched. It will be a double sou, but for yourself a box. What will you place in this box? A small piece of steel, a watch-spring in which you have made teeth, and which will be a saw. With this saw, about the length of a pin, you will be obliged to cut through the bolt of the lock, the padlock of your chain, the bar at your window, and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece done, this prodigy accomplished, all the miracles of art, skill, cleverness, and patience executed, what will be your reward if you are detected? A dungeon. Such is the future. What precipices are sloth and pleasure! To do nothing is a melancholy resolution, are you aware of that? To live in indolence on the social substance; to be useless, that is to say, injurious,—this leads straight to the bottom of misery. Woe to the man who wishes to be a parasite, for he will be vermin! Ah! it does not please you to work. Ah! you have only one thought, to drink well, eat well, and sleep well. You will drink water; you will eat black bread; you will sleep on a plank, with fetters riveted to your limbs, and feel their coldness at night in your flesh! You will break these fetters and fly; very good. You will drag yourself on your stomach into the shrubs and eat grass like the beasts of the field; and you will be re-captured, and then you will pass years in a dungeon, chained to the wall, groping in the dark for your water-jug, biting at frightful black bread which dogs would refuse, and eating beans which maggots have eaten before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah, ah! take pity on yourself, wretched boy, still so young, who were at your nurse's breast not twenty years ago, and have doubtless a mother still! I implore you to listen to me. You want fine black cloth, polished shoes, to scent your head with fragrant oil, to please bad women, and be a pretty fellow; you will have your hair close shaven, and wear a red jacket and wooden shoes. You want a ring on your finger; and will wear a collar on your neck, and if you look at a woman you will be beaten. And you will go in there at twenty and come out at fifty years of age. You will go in young, red-cheeked, healthy, with your sparkling eyes and all your white teeth, and your curly locks; and you will come out again broken, bent, wrinkled, toothless, horrible, and gray-headed! Ah, my poor boy, you are on the wrong road, and indolence is a bad adviser; for robbery is the hardest of labors. Take my advice, and do not undertake the laborious task of being an idler. To become a rogue is inconvenient, and it is not nearly so hard to be an honest man. Now go, and think over what I have said to you. By the bye, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is."

And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, placed his purse in his hand, which Montparnasse weighed for a moment; after which, with the same mechanical precaution as if he had stolen it, Montparnasse let it glide gently into the back-pocket of his coat. All this said and done, the old gentleman turned his back and quietly resumed his walk.